Reacting to the Nuggets Front Office Moves – Genius or Gamble?

Reacting to the Nuggets Front Office Moves – Genius or Gamble?

well we’re back on the Mile High Hoops podcast and it was a little bit of an absence from us i will not lie but it was not as long of an absence as the Nuggets front office leadership that was solved earlier today with the Denver Nuggets announcing Ben Tenzer the former interim GM and the GM of the G-League team the Grand Rapids Gold will be named or has been named the executive vice president of basketball operations so we’ve got that going on we’ve got another man coming into the fold that is John Wallace jonathan Wallace the executive vice president of player personnel AP two men one job it seems maybe multiple jobs but we finally have our answer after this giant waiting period of trying to figure out what was going to happen what are your first thoughts it took this long for this that that that’s kind of my first thought right and you know I had just barely woken up this morning you know I’m like doing my morning stretches i’m like you know drinking some water getting ready to make some coffee and all of a sudden like here comes this news on our timeline which you know we’re about 48 hours away here from the NBA draft so it was bound to happen sooner rather than later here with the Denver Nuggets but um part for the course that is the terminology I believe I used with you when we were texting about it this morning that’s the terminology I’ve used with folks here at the Denver Sports 1043 The Fan Studios uh they went cheap and what’s old is new again the Denver Nuggets under the leadership of Stan Kroni back in the day deployed a similar front office dynamic pre Masaiiri yeah and that was the first front office that Stan had the decision of making because he inherited the front office before with Dan Isil and Kiki Vanderway so this is a structure that the Kronis have had in place before um my first first first reaction to the structure not the names involved the structure was so you had a conflict that divided the entire organization and you are going to put two men on opposing sides just to start and we’re going to see how it devolves from there that is fascinating um fingers crossed maybe starting them from the place of being equals with the incentive of you’ve never had jobs this important will have them collaborating but that’s how me and you and normal people work in their day-to-day jobs generally in professional sports people got egos i’m not saying that about either of these guys because I know Ben a little bit more than I know John Wallace and I don’t take Ben as one of those types of guys but I’m just telling you a lot of people want to go say “I signed player A and player A is the reason they won a championship.” He wanted them to sign player B that’s my first thought is I was a little bit scared that they have worked themselves into this trap door i did a little bit more research thought to myself well the Encourt results were pretty good during the Carmelo days the late Carmelo days which is when they had the structure but in talking to people around the scenes when I was not back in those days 2006 to 2010 things got a little bit messy yeah and I think to take it even a further step in reverse like you bring up the Calvin Booth dynamic and you know obviously what they’ve done in years past they’re also following a similar blueprint in regards to hiring a coach before they hired an executive and I understand that Ben Tenzer is now promoted right he was the interim GM once Calvin Booth was let go so it’s not like it’s total unfamiliarity here and you know it is worth noting here that John Wallace spent some time with the Denver Nuggets organization under the command of Tim Connley so he is a familiar name in and around the building um you know but maybe a new face a new name for for Nuggets fans that did you know get into the nuances of front office construction 10 years ago or whatever it was right in theory David Adelman Ben Tenzer and John Wallace have all worked together already correct correct so it’s interesting and and we’ll see what Wallace can do here you know it seems like there’s some pretty positive reviews from what I’ve gathered uh you mentioned to me that he’s a former teammate of Uncle Jeff Green back in the day at Georgetown I believe if memory serves me correct so you know there’s another connection he’s a free agent so is Gary Harris so you know Bruce Brown’s on the short list we’re just going to get the band back together is what it sounds yeah but here here’s the thing dude um you kind of hit on it here we go into what I have labeled you have labeled as well as you know arguably the most important off season in Nuggets franchise history nicole Joic is eligible to sign a contract extension here in a couple of weeks that has to be priority number one assuming nothing happens with the draft which is in uh 48 hours so we’ll see what happens there uh but I I I I think getting Nola to sign on the dotted line to this contract extension will be test number one not that it should be much of a test it should frankly be more of a formality but if Nola is a little hesitant not saying that he will be to sign this extension that gets Nuggets Nation worried a little bit so outside of the draft priority number one has to be getting the big fella locked up for years to come yeah we’re going to know pretty early on in July here whether or not Nicole Joic approved of these moves however I don’t think they make these moves without Nicole Joic signing off on them so uh Jonathan Wallace is obviously someone he would know because he worked for the Nuggets john Wallace from what I’ve gathered in just you know a couple hours of research here is a very well-connected man especially through player circles and that’s something that Denver Nuggets very badly needed so Nicole Joic being one of the most important players in the league obviously know who knew who this guy was and being you know very close with Jeff Green as Nicole Joic was and you know running in the same circles as DeAndre Jordan and stuff he would know John Wallace so I think that Nicole Joic probably has already signed off on this move now the question is will he sign off to the tune of $212 million for his future contract earnings i have some questions about that i don’t think Nicole Joic is really gonna go anywhere but ultimately you’ve put the offensive coordinator of the Denver Nuggets the G-League GM of the Iowa Wolves the G-League GM of the Grand Rapids Gold in charge of the second half of Nicole’s prime those are indisputable facts these are all first timers and some will say they needed to go out and do something more expensive go get you know maybe uh Tom Tibido to be the head coach and uh bring back Bob Myers to be the GM i’m not sure something along the lines of that i don’t think that was ever on the table for this organization and the way they’ve been known to operate for such an extended amount of time now this was maybe the cheapest option i don’t know if it was the cheapest it was among the cheapest options some fans will be crying you know cranky poor on that it doesn’t mean it wasn’t the best option i’m not here to tell you today it was it was a bad decision or a good decision i’m not sure yet i haven’t even h had a conversation in a press conference with these guys yet all I can tell you is they went from having a very insular front office and Calvin Booth and a guy who didn’t have many relationships around the league and now they keep the guy who does a lot of the business and contract stuff the stuff that frankly most people don’t understand in Ben and they add a guy who does a lot of that interpersonal relationships and talks across the league guy so I think that this could be a very positive thing for the Nuggets it is a very unknown water it is a taking a chance because all of these entities are unknown from David to Ben to John yeah it’s interesting and you know there there’s a couple of good points that you make i want to go back to the the cheap conversation from Kroni you know what is interesting there wasn’t many candidates you know you heard some rumors about Bob Meyers but the one external candidate that I feel like we had some some steam or some buzz to also happens to work for the Minnesota Timberwolves and that’s their current acting general manager Matt Lloyd so now obviously like at first when I saw this news come out I had to remind myself like was this Matt Lloyd is this the guy we were talking about obviously it’s not it’s John Wallace so going back to the to the the cheap conversation for just a moment maybe they tried to make a similar offer to Matt Lloyd of like “Hey we want to go this combo role you handle basketball operations ben will handle the business and the finances.” And maybe Matt said no so that they maybe go down the pecking order one and take a look here at Wallace who they ended up on so um read into that as you may but the one guy outside of Bob Myers outside of the organization that had any sort of connection any sort of steam to the Denver Nuggets outside of those living on a prayer for Tim Conley was their current general manager Matt Lloyd so the fact they didn’t get him but stayed within the Timber Rules organization read into that a little bit tells me something yeah I think uh they missed him i think they missed him that’s part of it i I did hear what he said here’s the here’s uh you know here’s John Wallace he’s a great guy i worked with him in Denver so you know him you should hire this guy that’s how the I I believe that conversation had to have gone down no no and and I from what I know at least obviously the the relationship was left in maybe not the best place possible because uh you know some of the comments Josh and Tim both made on their way out the door but at least before that they were very close so I would say that maybe you know all is fair and love and war and these guys probably made up and had some conversations so uh I wouldn’t be surprised if Tim recommended this person for this job and obviously Tim still loves Denver and has a lot of care for these guys i mean I’ve seen him in the Nuggets locker room this you know as frequently you know as recently as like last year so this is not an adversarial relationship at least from what I understand and you also have to keep in mind with John not only was he a teammate of Jeff Green and I I kind of circle those dots he was a point guard on a Final Four team his junior year he had a game-winning shot against North Carolina an important important play in the 2007 NCA tournament comes back a year later loses to Steph Curry’s Davidson team he was the guy guarding him for you know big stretches of that game in 2008 um who is he being coached by john Thompson III John Thompson II John Thompson Jr was still around for most of that era he wasn’t you know he he was still alive which meant Red Hourback was still around bill Russell was still around you know some of these lessons that were taught to John Thompson Jr were being taught to John Wallace so when we talk about Calvin Booth and we were like “Okay yeah he played basketball in the NBA and whatever you couldn’t even find pictures of it.” like he was around but it wasn’t like he was as as connected and you could hear things around the league i go and read just like a couple page results on Google about John Wallace and you’re already getting connected to Red Arback i feel like that’s a little bit better of a situation for what the Nuggets need now going back to the point that you just made though about oh maybe it was a Bob Myers they could have gotten a big name yada yada yada let alone splitting responsibilities and being put into this situation with Ben Tenzer which may not be the best situation possible for you know a guy wanting to be the GM and the head and the number one somewhere else right what does this role really allow you to do you’re going to want to sign Nicole Joic to a long-term extension yes you have some pretty big decisions to make right away with Payton Watson and Christian Brown that could go any number of directions you don’t have any draft picks to trade you don’t even have any picks to draft in this year’s draft you don’t have any salary cap space and you’re so close to the second apron that you don’t even know if you can actually use the mid-level exception so what’s the attractive level of this job the answer to me was zero some people thought “Oh it’s the second half of Nicole Yoshi’s prime got a great player you know they’ve taken care of the hard things just like when Calvin Booth inherited the team we’ll always say he was the GM for the Nuggets when he won a champ when they won the championship it was Tim’s team it’s still Tim’s team right like it’s still Tim’s team so I don’t know that there’s all that much attraction to this job not only because of Kroni and the money and all this other stuff but because of where the Nuggets are from a basketball perspective in terms of the collective bargain agreement right now yeah i think if we take it at a surface level right I I think the idea of being the the captain of the ship you know that that Nicole Joic is on is attractive regardless of what it is but I think to your point the Nuggets are just simply stuck like like they to they don’t have moves to make you talked about the draft capital uh you know you talked about you know Payton Watson and Christian Brown’s looming contract extensions we know MPJ and Jamal Murray are virtually untradeable so there’s really no seismic moves to you know have a new GM like a Bob Myers type come in here and put his fingerprints on and call it his this is really a maintenance type of role uh you know and I don’t mean that in a bad way and I think the way that I look at the the John Wallace situation as well as the Ben Tenzer promotion here is you’ve got to be cautiously optimistic like I I I I think everything that I’ve picked up on that you’ve talked about that we’ve shared on this show and in private as well you know seems like John Wallace has got his head on straight you know he has a lot of strengths that Calvin Booth did not so you’re getting an upgrade in regards to familiarity around the league relationships around the league relationships with players that’s all great but again if it was Bob Myers and I don’t want to make this the Bob Myers show he can’t do much more than John Wallace is going to be able to do and that’s the thing is I know that John Wallace is what executive vice president is his official term along with Ben Tenzer he he is the acting general manager like Ben Tenzer as I said earlier from what I’ve heard will handle the finances and the the offthe court stuff john Wallace will be the guy talking at the trade deadline talking draft night you know wheeling and dealing on some of these moves for the Denver Nuggets so John Wallace when it comes to roster construction and trades that’s the guy you’re going to be looking at but they’re also both in Ben Tenzer and John Wallace all all roads lead back to Josh Kroni it seems like Josh Kron is going to be taking a little bit more of a hands-on approach here uh but you know I’m like I said cautiously optimistic i mean he he’s got he checks all the boxes has the experience has the relationships i don’t know how much he can do but where we kind of started this show s signing Nicole Joic to a contract on July 8th is what I believe the day he becomes eligible to sign that deal has to be priority number one if that is not done in swift order I start to get a little nervous yeah so just one more thing on John uh Wallace here’s a quote from John Thompson the third in 2007 when uh John Wallace was his point guard quote “You win with people like John Wallace you look at him he’s not the fastest person in the world he’s not the strongest person never will be but he has character he has guts and he’s a good man he’s willed his way through so many situations uh for those who do not know John Wallace was uh recruited to Princeton by John Thompson III um John Thompson III takes the job at Georgetown before John Wallace can even step on campus he says “I want to follow you to Georgetown.” John Thompson says “I don’t have a spot for you.” Says “You can walk on.” Walks on a year later he earns a scholarship and again he becomes the starting point guard for that Georgetown team that was so good um and you know some other notes that I kind of found while browsing he’s a big defenseoriented guy uh you know he’s from Alabama and you know that’s all I kind of have at at the current moment um we got a press conference tomorrow so we’ll learn some and I do find what you say to be very interesting and some stuff that makes sense as well which is it seems to me that when you think about what a traditional GM does John Wallace is basically that with um Ben Tenzer fulfilling some of those obligations but maybe even being a half step ahead of him in terms of the leadership of where the organization is um I’m not going to think of Ben Tenzer like a president but to me it’s you know both of them are going to be reporting to Josh Kroni but I think Ben Tenzer’s spoke on the wheel is going to be a little bit closer to Josh’s than where Wallace’s is if that makes sense he’s going to be a little bit higher up but maybe not necessarily his boss so you know we all have these situations with different people in departments at our workplace right where me and Anilo have the same boss there are bosses in other departments maybe that boss is a little bit closer to the actual higher up boss than our boss is so um that that happens uh in workplaces so that this isn’t too unheard of and in the perspective of the executive is becoming a lot more important in the NBA i think that this is a situation that could answer that call by diluting some of the power of the executive becoming so important i don’t think that Josh Kroni wants someone that is a allwilling all powerful person again like Michael Malone was that George Carl was that Tim Connley was becoming that right like I don’t think I think Josh Kroni wants the final say on a lot of things in the Nuggets organization and unlike all these other organizations that he runs and he’s connected to this is his baby he is a basketball fan and to me this is what’s important to Josh is the Denver Nuggets so whether or not you know it’s Josh running things or whatever i don’t think Josh has the time to run things but do I think Josh gets asked about Nicole Joic’s extension for $212 million do I think Josh gets asked about whether or not they want to trade MPJ i think that was happening before and it’s going to happen after so I’m not too concerned with the titles i know they over there they are really interested in the titles we get emails about the titles they care about the titles i’m interested in the actuality of how this actually works and to me this actually isn’t that crazy of a situation it’s just the titles are a little bit weird um I know I just talked a lot uh but I didn’t really give you a question so I’m gonna give a little bit of a breakdown on Ben Tenzer as well ben is one of the longest tenur employees of the Denver Nuggets ben has been around since the early 2000s uh he has worked his way up through this organization he was most recently the Grand Rapids Gold GM he has worked in scouting he has worked as like a legal guy for them on contracts he has been their CBA and their cap guru uh for basically 15 years now um he is a very good guy i have a I have a really good relationship with Ben um and I’m very happy for him on a personal side of things he has earned this opportunity um so you can kind of feel good if you’re a Nuggets fan that some of that culture that made that 2023 team so special is being recreated with Ben John and David now some people say “We need to change things it’s so broken.” I tell you they were a couple plays away from beating the team that won the NBA championship and yeah oh everyone around the West is getting better maybe Houston not everybody so thoughts on in the last four minutes of my spiel no I think you make some good points um and I I’ll kind of throw it right back to you as well let me let me get this one out there the one piece of Nuggets news no pun intended the nugget we got last week is Tommy Belchettis was no longer with the organization and Tommy Belchettis was you know regard highly regarded young and up and cominging mind i believe I saw that he was listed on Forb’s top 40 you know rising executives across the league as well you know so it kind of checks those boxes so in theory in theory you could have just kept Ben and put Tommy in the exact same situation that you just hired John Wallace for so is John Wallace why is John Wallace a better uh you know fit for this type of role versus a guy like Tommy Bchettis with the with the Ivy League background having been in the organization that fabric of that championship season as well i think these are all very valid questions to ask as well but you made a good point about the ever growing importance on league executives around the NBA and you and I had talked about this a handful of different times as this as the season was winding down and in our early offseason shows as well you know Sam Prey is getting all the ra you know uh reward right now for what he’s done i know he hasn’t won yet but Dale Mory you know a highly regarded executive around the league pat Riley what he’s done with Miami you know you go back to Bob Meyers uh working under Jerry West in Golden State to kind of build that out so now I guess where I come back to is Josh fancies himself a basketball man i don’t think either one of Ben or Jonathan are going to have one hand tied behind their back i think they’re going to be allowed to do what they want to do as long as they get the appro approval from Josh here but does that concern you at all Tim Connley in Minnesota because it seems like you know having one guy at the top that calls the shots is working out for a lot of these different NBA teams and the Nuggets a little bit unwilling to go you know that far into it with this type of move so are you at all concerned with the lack of a true identity or that identity rather being Josh Kroni is still kind of the leader of the ship in the front office no um because I think they have the answers of what they’re trying to do right um I like Tommy a lot i thought Tommy was a rising executive i actually thought Tommy was going to get this job when I found out didn’t have it um but Tommy’s a little bit more on the scouting side whereas John seems to be more on the player management side and it’s not that big of a difference but it’s a little bit of a difference um and maybe this is just simply we’re picking one and then we have to go outside for the other guy because we just we need a little bit of new life here we’ve gone internal for everything and granted John’s not that much of an external candidate given he worked here three years ago but it is something new and obviously the Kronis were unhappy with the structure to begin with given they’ve restructured everything and the fact that they fired Calvin Booth to begin with um so I think they were just looking for something new so uh I don’t know how to completely answer your question at this given moment um but I do think that there’s reason to believe that they’ve set themselves up to succeed but again I go back to what I said to start the podcast they have put themselves in a position starting from perhaps conflict rather than resolution and clear pecking order now can that work well you look across town with Denver Broncos it’s working well so far with Payton and Payton and it wasn’t working well when Pton was Hackett’s boss whether or not that was Payton or Hackett’s fault I’m not sure so maybe this kind of co-andem thing can work and granted these NBA organizations are supposed to be like large cruise ships all handle you know heading in the same direction you’re supposed to have the captain the co- captain who comes on at night and stares a little bit and then you’re supposed to have the second mate and the third mate and blah blah blah last year it was just Calvin out here running the whole thing and he ran it into the ground and part of this to me is a direct reaction to the fact that reportedly Calvin made the Reggie Jackson trade without anyone’s approval without notifying anyone in the organization not ownership not anyone else at the front office not Michael Malone that he was shipping him out for three second round picks given the Nugget’s current structure it seems impossible for anyone to be acting alone now it seems they are going to be forced to collaborate and that could create conflict or it could create a better working situation but they have already been working on things in Elo because of one of the nuggets that came out over the weekend as well that they were one of the wildcard suitors for Kevin Durant which means somebody was on the phone and now we know that person was likely Ben Tensor AP do you think they actually seriously were involved and interested in bringing Kevin Durant to the mile high Uh I do I do and I think they would have been a little bit more active and a little bit more interested had they had their leadership structure in the front office set in stone uh you know before you know interim GM Ben Tenzer who’s now in you know a similar role like it was just very discombobulated behind the scenes now look I don’t I I I I think Phoenix got absolutely fleeced in the deal for Kevin Durant i mean they probably would have gotten a much better return had Kevin Durant been willing to go to Minnesota uh you know all signs point to it seemed like those two were pretty close on a deal before Kevin Durant shut it down so I don’t know how competitive of a package the Nuggets could have put together compared to that of of Houston you know Jaylen Green the first round pick you know this that and the other uh but I would think that they would have had a better chance to really be in the conversation for Kevin Durant if they had their leadership situation figured out yeah I would agree with that because maybe Kevin Durant likes the person here and wants to come here because Kevin Durant as it’s being reported today kept saying no to trade offers including to Houston until they got pennies on the dollar for him but let’s just say Kevin Durant wanted to come here the Nuggets best offer is one we already know which is a 2030 first round pick michael Porter Jr or Jamal Murray throw one of the two in there plus they have to have contracts of like Zeke Naji and Dario Arch to get up to the KD level and then you’re probably throwing Christian Brown and a first round pick from you know 2031 and if you waited till Wednesday night you could have included a second round pick they got five second round picks they got the number 10 pick in the draft they got Jaylen Green who’s you know I’m not a big fan of him but he could be an all-star like that is potential for him and then Dylan Brooks who is a self-described uh the Suns wanted more ruggedness to their team like they they you know maybe they’re all 6’5 and shooting guards on that roster but Dylan Brooks was a team need that they had so um from the Suns perspective they don’t know if that 2030 pick is going to be a top 10 pick for the Denver Nuggets they also have a limited time clock on deon Booker right now and they need an asset in the door today jaylen Green is a better player today than Christian Brown is like that is indisputably true and has more trade value and has more trade value because it seems like Phoenix might just try to flip him and get more assets correct and are you going to take on the negative contract value of Michael Porter Jr so you have that and Bradley Beal so I don’t think that this trade was ever going to happen for the Denver Nuggets however it is fascinating for the second year in a row just as they were interested in Paul George last year they were sniffing around this territory um and it leads me to believe that they do know that they could make a big swing but maybe they’re hesitant to do so and they should be because those big swings we can see how they play out we’ve had this conversation milwaukeee’s back themselves into a corner phoenix backed themselves into a corner right these teams sometimes back themselves into a corner and then there’s no way out and then all of a sudden your superstars being traded like Kevin Durant so I’m not a big fan of getting KD in here kd’s one of my favorite players ever i talked about it around around the trade deadline a lot but I didn’t think that there was a huge upside to bringing KD in here given the circumstances that the Nuggets had right now um but I think it would be a giant mistake to go down the rabbit hole and say “Well we couldn’t get KD now let’s get the second best option which would be like a Demar D Rozan i think the Nuggets are far better off with Michael Porter Jr than Demar D Rozan.” Yeah I I don’t disagree i like Demar D Rozan but but here’s the thing it ain’t happening it is going to be the core five it’s going to be probably Bruce Brown it’s going to probably be maybe Gary Harris and then maybe bring back Jeff Green like I really think I I’m not seeing a a huge move or two to be made and to find huge however you want but I think any moves that they do make could be you know getting the band back together here a little bit you know maybe a free agent here a free agent there that hasn’t played for the Nuggets before but again kind of bringing it back to the conversation as a whole the word of the day stuck that is where the Denver Nuggets are right now you know you’ve got Nicole you know you’ve got Jamal and MPJ christian you don’t have to sign him this offseason but you risk the price going up if he plays better this coming season uh so you know it kind of is what it is and uh we’ll have to see how Denver moves forward you know with this roster they’re probably going to run it back i don’t think it’s the worst thing in the world i know it’s frustrating for a lot of fans out there but like what do you want to do that was the first thing that I said in kind of my reaction video that I did for us here is like the new GM you know the new front office like they they very limited options is what they have they could try to you know get a second round pick in Wednesday’s draft uh you know but outside of that not a whole lot of uh work to be done not a whole lot of maintenance to be done so and one of the reasons why they’re even more stuck today than they were maybe a week ago is because Dario Sarge picked up his option over the weekend i can’t fault a guy for making $5 million for free yeah I do the same thing happy for Dario um but he is going to find himself in a peculiar position if he actually wants to play basketball this year um because the Nuggets don’t have the assets to get off Dario Sarge and move him to a team who can then cut him that means the Nuggets would then have to cut him i believe they can stretch that out over two years instead of just one which means you’re basically taking a $2.5 million cap hit over two years rather than one $5.5 million cap hit so that might be something the Nuggets consider just to get the roster spot back because right now as of today they only have three roster spots it’s it’s DJ’s spot it’s Blackco spot and it is Russell Westbrook’s spot and that’s another spot that again they’ve backed themselves into a corner their sixth man from last year is a free agent and their only avenues to get him back are to offer him another minimum contract which actually pays him more cash value than if he had just accepted the player option that’s why he didn’t if he’s coming back secondarily they can offer him a slight raise off of early bird rights or non-bird extension i’m not exactly sure what the terminology is but it’s a 20% raise or they could offer him the full mid-level exception which is what me and you are hoping they offer Bruce Brown now me and you have said over and over again we we we’ve gone back and forth on whether or not we want Russ back i’m pretty clear on the side that I don’t want Russ back but into the context of this conversation they definitely need more production off their bench and that’s one of the first priorities after the Nicole Joic stuff given for these two men that are now running the Denver Nuggets front office and they’re going to need a scour and granted Ben Tenzer seems to have been working as the GM for a while now and it’s not like John Wallace doesn’t know the marketplace because he’s been involved in it in Minnesota so at least they’re not pulling you know that was one of my concerns about Bob Myers just honestly AP is if they brought Bob Myers in today on Monday and the draft was on Wednesday what kind of scouting work had Bob Myers done what kind of scouting work on on not only drafted players but free agents around the league that maybe weren’t getting enough playing time like for instance there’s a guy on Houston that I really like that I think is going to be an odd man out in this situation and that’s a good roster and and I like pecking around these teams that got a lot of guys and there’s odd men out whether it’s Oklahoma City and you know you find a guy like Ty Jerome who falls off their roster and look at him now for Cleveland one of those guys for Houston in my opinion is going to be Jan Tate who’s a really good player but I don’t have the basketball pedigree to go out and say all right let me scout to see if he’s actually a good player still and Houston was just misusing him or whatever i believe that Ben Tenzer and John Wallace already know the answer to whether or not Jawn Tate is a still good player i don’t think that would have been the case for Bob Myers who’s been working in TV for a year and a half so there are some upsides to this move um that the Denver Nuggets made and we will find out more about it tomorrow in a press conference and then after that we’re going to find out the first moves made by Wallace and Tenzer the brain trust on Wednesday and Thursday during the NBA draft when traditionally a lot of moves get made the Nuggets do not have a pick um but I would not be surprised if they sign a two-way guy uh you know a two-way player off of an undrafted situation or something like that in the coming days summer league is actually going to be kind of interesting for the Nuggets this year because they’ve got those three two-way spots and we Don Holmes playing in summer league i would assume so there was talk of him doing that we’re going to ask that question tomorrow that’s going to be one of the things that gets talked about um but we are going to talk to you Thursday after the NBA draft that is our current plan so we’ll do that then free agency believe it or not opens up in 7 days I believe ap is that right july 1st 23rd so we will likely talk to you again on Thursday Tuesday maybe next Thursday as well so we are back at least for this short time in the summer when the NBA offseason heats up um congratulations to the Oklahoma City Thunder they went out and earned a championship um I I’m gonna Yeah um I feel horrible for Tyrese Hallebertton who’s one of my favorite players in the league um and you you think Indiana wins that game if he doesn’t get hurt no I don’t i agree i agree but it’s it’s going to be one of the biggest whatifs in NBA history it just is and that championship will have an asterisk unfortunately for the Nuggets I think that uh the Thunder are probably going to get another championship to prove that that championship did not matter with its asterisk but you know Alex Cruso every championship he earns gonna have an asterisk on it so that’s just the way it is um anyway uh he’s an Elo i’m Jake Shapiro we will talk to you again on Thursday with a lot of information next chat soon peace

The Denver Nuggets now have a front office, finalizing their structure on Monday by promoting interim general manager Ben Tenzer and adding Timberwolves’ executive Jon Wallace. Jake Shapiro and Aniello Piro react to the long-awaited announcement. Plus, what do Kevin Durant and Dario Saric have to do with it?